In today's society convenience is almost a necessity. Manufacturers gear entire product lines to satisfy society's need for convenience. One common market that manufacturers have targeted with convenience in mind has been the market for electric and electronic appliances. Many people will elect not to use an electrical appliance such as a television or light, if they must walk across a room to turn the television or light ON. Thus, manufacturers have developed devices that remotely control and operate almost all electronic appliances.
Unfortunately, most remotely controlled appliances require a person to possess a remote control unit to operate the appliance. The requirement of possession in itself can be a major inconvenience. Often a person must walk across a room to retrieve the remote control unit, and frequently it may be misplaced, which, at best, requires extra time and effort to find.
To solve the problems associated with hand-held remote control units, some manufacturers have developed sound activated switches. There are a number of sound activated switches available for sale. Typically these devices turn electrical appliances ON and OFF in response to a specific sound. Some sound activated switches operate from hand-held sound generators. These devices, however, suffer from the same problem as other remote control units--possession of the controller is required before it can be used. Other sound activated devices operate in response to sounds physically produced by a person such as two closely spaced claps. These devices are very useful in solving the problems associated with the previously described remote control units and are especially useful to handicapped persons who have difficulty moving around a room.
However, one disadvantage associated with some of the currently available devices that are activated by hand-clapping or similar sound signals is that only a single sound-activated switch can operate in any given room unless all the controlled electrical accessories in that room are to be turned ON at the same time. Even in this case, one sound-activated switch may be slightly more sensitive than another or the switches may be placed in such a position that a series of hand claps will operate only one of the switches in the room. Thus, if a person tries a second time to operate a sound activated switch that did not activate the first time, the first switch may switch an appliance back ON when the second switch switches an appliance OFF.
Additionally, some prior art devices require manual adjustment to the acoustics of a room to function properly. If an inexperienced operator does not make the adjustments properly, appliances could be turned ON and OFF by unintended control signals, which is both frustrating and annoying.